Halloween (1978)

1994 Criterion LaserDisc: Still the gold standard - it's a wonderful unadulterated transfer of the magnetic mono master.

2000 Anchor Bay DVD: Plenty of hiss reduction and much less bass than the Criterion LaserDisc. It sounds very bad, I'd say - certainly worse than the restored mono of Carrie (1976), which was already bad enough. The sync of the music/effects relative to the dialogue is slightly different than on the LaserDisc, which suggests this is a different mono mixdown. I haven't detected any content-related discrepancies, though, so it's fair to still consider it the theatrical mono mix. This mastering was probably completed in the late '90s and it's the same one that's been used across various releases over the past 21 years.

2007 Anchor Bay Blu-ray: Same as the DVD.

2013 Anchor Bay Blu-ray (35th anniversary): A poorly downmixed version of the 5.1 mix. I say poorly because some phase cancellation has occurred, so everything sounds extremely odd and muted.

2014 Shout Factory Blu-ray: A lossless version of the DVD mastering.

2018 Lionsgate UHD: The AC-3 mono track on this disc is a more competently downmixed version of the 5.1 mix with no phase cancellation.

2021 Shout Factory UHD: A lossy transcode of the DVD mastering. Funny that the previous Shout blu-ray actually was lossless! Anyway, this sounds bad because it's the same horrible manipulated DVD-era track, not because it's 'fake' lossless.

Halloween (1978)

The 5.1 has altered music cues (sometimes starting a second or two earlier/later), and Carpenter’s score is also too damn loud. There are many new sound effects added throughout the film, namely insect/ambient ‘night’ noises during outdoor scenes. When Annie gets in her car and closes the door, these insect noises can still be heard (ahh!), whereas the mono mix transitions into a very eerie silence the moment this happens. If there’s something that sounds a bit unpleasant on the mono, it’s the scene where Laurie and Annie are driving around and listening to Don’t Fear the Reaper—it sounds extremely trebly in the mono, to the point of causing some serious irritation. But, it’s part of the original mix and was clearly intentional, and actually fits quite well with the era’s preference for such EQ.

A mono track is included on the 35th anniversary remaster, but it’s just a mixdown of the 5.1. The recent Shout Factory disc (which has the remastered 35th anniversary video) thankfully has a proper version of the original mono mix. But, it’s been nuked hard with noise reduction and sounds quite murky as a result (the 5.1 is similar, actually).

The Criterion LaserDisc mono track sounds miles better than the Shout mono track.